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By Paul Losch
About this blog: I was a "corporate brat" growing up and lived in different parts of the country, ending in Houston, Texas for high school. After attending college at UC Davis, and getting an MBA at Harvard, I embarked on a marketing career, mai...
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About this blog: I was a "corporate brat" growing up and lived in different parts of the country, ending in Houston, Texas for high school. After attending college at UC Davis, and getting an MBA at Harvard, I embarked on a marketing career, mainly in the Bay Area with different companies. My former wife went back to medical school after we had been married a few years, and we moved into married student housing at Stanford, had our two now adult children while she was a medical student, and moved into Palo Alto when she started her Residency. Been here ever since. As my kids were going through the Palo Alto schools, I was actively involved in their activities, most notably head umpire for Palo Alto Little League and 9 years as a member of the Parks and Recreation Commission, among other activities. My kids both are grown, my son teaches 5th grade locally, and my daughter, fluent in Mandarin, is working in China. I sold the business I owned and ran for 8 years in 2012, worked on the Obama campaign, and am consulting for non-profit organizations, which gives me a nice, flexible schedule. Lots of stamps in my passport, and for fun, I like live performances &emdash; theater and music - and of course the Giants!
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New Bay Bridge Eastern Span
Uploaded: Aug 26, 2013
I do not have occasion to drive on the San Francisco/Oakland Bay Bridge these days, unlike a prior time in my life.
Still, I do use it from time to time, and the risk of rubber-necking, I have tried to understand just what this replacement portion of the bridge would be like.
One can look at this a bunch of ways. I will offer one. I hope other readers provide other thoughts.
My thought is about design.
The cantilever bridge that is coming done is ugly, and reflective of the time it was built, namely in the midst of the 1930's depression, and a time of public works employment. Rosie the Riveter mentality. I don't have the civil engineering background to understand why this approach was taken for the span. It was acceptable for years until the 1989 earthquake, and it has taken this long to replace it.
It always has been ugly from a design standpoint.
The new replacement span has been a boondoggle from a spending standpoint, and some of the shenanigans around some of its construction components raise questions about how much safer it is than what it replaces.
But from a design standpoint, my opinion is that it is a thing of beauty, much more in place with the San Francisco persona than its predecessor.
I just hope it is safe to drive.
Local Journalism.
What is it worth to you?
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